Teacher Candidate ePortfolio

Week #11 – March 17, 2022

Chapter 6 – Choose a question from the “Pause and Ponder” section on p. 110 of the text.

No matter their roles, what can teachers do to define and support

instructional agility in the school or school system?

 

Dear Journal, I must admit this is a chapter that I did not connect with at the start. When I think of “Instructional Agility,” I know exactly what it is. In fact, it is that one skill that I did not have a name for, but I knew I was awesome at before I became a non-certified teacher. However, the chapter takes me down a path of disconnection, and I get it: I would have a hard time explaining it past a paragraph, and I certainly have never thought to break it out in the areas of focus that the authors have.

I cannot imagine teaching without instructional agility. I have such fluidity in my teaching; it has gotten me in trouble with my scouting leadership team several times because I change the plan so often based on the kids’ needs (i.e., end activity early, add in breaks…). When I think of the BC Curriculum through the lens of instructional agility, I can only be thankful for the flexibility it provides classroom teachers in our province. We are afforded the autonomy of one year’s time, scope and sequence.

I looked at this “Pause and Ponder” as to how I could contribute to promoting instructional agility within a school; this is not an easy task that can be explicitly taught. However, I agree with the authors that practicing strategies and tools in pre-planning questions, generating engaging conversations, analyzing errors, and promoting continual thinking (p. 105.) are all great strategies for teachers to improve their instructional agility skills. Although, they suggest practicing in team meetings, conferences, and observation opportunities (p. 98.) I believe the simplest possibility exists in upholding your regular commitment to BC Educator Standards #7: Educators engage in professional learning (BCTC, 2019). I cannot imagine a Professional Development session where educators can genuinely say they walk away with zero learning. With each bit we add to our educational lexicon, we improve our ability to become more instructionally agile with our students. So, I suppose that is what I will do; I will remember to advocate to my colleagues both the benefit and their obligation.

 

 

Week #8 – 10 Practicum – Feb 22 to Mar 11, 2022

Reflect on the assessment practices you carried out and/or observed during your practicum.

This submission may be longer, to a maximum of 2 double spaced pages.

 

I have focused this journal on the formative and summative assessment strategies that I applied in the English Language Arts (ELA) portion of my EDUC 391 Practicum. To find more detailed information on my ELA Unit: “Digital Mini-Book Unit – Writing from an Inspiration,” please read my EDUC 391 Practicum Lesson Plan and Reflection, submitted on April 2, 2022. During my Practicum, I taught seven one-hour Math blocks on geometric concepts of 2D shapes, perimeter, and circumference. I used many similar formative assessment strategies to ELA in the Math blocks. However, I applied a very different summative assessment strategy based on collecting small pieces of evidence over time. I provided the Coaching Teacher with reporting information on each student’s placement on the BC Proficiency Scale on the content I had covered in both ELA and Math.

When I look at the assessment in my ELA Unit through the lens of the Six Tenets, I feel like my Unit was a total flop. However, with that said, I know that it was an “Experimental” Unit, my Coaching Teacher did remind me to go easier on myself in my reflections, and sometimes the best learning opportunities come through our mistakes in life.

______________

Assessment Purpose: I used formative assessment daily to guide my lesson planning by tracking student progress with attendance and daily notes on student progress. During my Formal Observation, I created an exit ticket to determine if any students required additional help with the app they were using. Unfortunately, I did not use any form of assessment at the beginning of my time with the class to find out where the students thought they needed the most help in their writing. My highly detailed summative assessment rubric proved to be less helpful to the students in their learning, their self-assessment, or providing my final reporting to the Coaching Teacher than I anticipated it would be.

Communication of Results: I believe that the students appreciated my feedback when I was able to work with them one-on-one. As we worked together formulating their story ideas and editing their digital versions, I could sense that I was the first to give them feedback that pushed their writing boundaries based on where they were at in their individual writing levels. I was only asked to provide the teacher with a simple report of “emerging/developing/proficient/extending” on each student at the end of the Unit. I will never know what the Coaching Teacher showed to the students or put in their digital report cards for this Unit. I feel a little sad knowing that my entire day of meticulously editing their books, providing them written feedback, and detailed comments on their rubric was likely for my learning opportunity only. Yet, the further away from my practicum I get, I also can understand why the Coaching Teacher may not pass it back to them. I imagine the return of my feedback could have been overwhelming to some students. Now that I think about it, I had some hesitation from my alternate students at the start until I was able to add a relationship piece and they could see the learning opportunities one can gain through working through corrections.

Accurate Interpretation: The good thing about my rubric was at the end of that very long day, I could say that my summative assessment of the student’s projects was fair and jam-packed of evidence to support my position on why I reported where each student landed on the Proficiency Scale regarding the Unit. This was really a lesson in breaking it down and putting it back together. It was hard sometimes when a student fell in between two of the columns to decide where to place them on the Proficiency Scale, and then it was hard again to find a balance when a student was “Extending” in some criteria and “Emerging” in others.

Assessment Architecture: In reflection, I need to work on adding in more purposeful formative assessments throughout lessons. I know that I am really good at gaining consensus feedback and love democratic classrooms, but designing assessments on student learning that is not for purposefully gathering summative evidence for reporting is a skill that I will need to acquire in the upcoming months. I enjoyed learning about project-based assessments for Curricular Content and Competencies in this Practicum; this is one thing that my Coaching Teacher excels at with her students. It is also something that works very well with the Digital Reporting system. Had I not needed to give a set number of “lessons” in my practicum, I would have liked to have tried this.

Instructional Agility: After reading my Coaching Teacher’s notes on my Formal Observations, I felt much better about how often I pivoted off my lesson plans. Her notes were evidence of my response to the needs of the students in the classroom. It was a collection of a few minutes to review a concept from the day before, or an adjustment to bring together two students struggling on the same area, or quick moments to bring the whole class back together for an explanation.  During my practicum, one of my biggest realizations was that we never finished one of any of my lessons. My super people-pleasing drive was the primary culprit.

Student Investment: In the class of 25 students, I conducted a poll with the students using emoticons on day one. I knew instantly it was going to be an uphill struggle, as most of the emoticons were sad or neutral faces in regard to the Unit idea I had pitched. As I built relationships with the students, especially on the ski days, I could see their buy-in slowly growing for the Unit. By the third week, some of the students who were very oppositional the first week had become invested in their stories and in advancing their writing skills. I know in my next practicum that I will be spending more time with the students, building relationships during those observation days to reduce that transition time.

 

These are some of the great practical ideas from my practicum experience in a Grade 6-7 Classroom.

Weekly Jobs List –   On the side of the Whiteboard, the Classroom Teacher has premade jobs: Backup, Runner, Handout, Line Leader, Caboose, Whiteboard, Gym, Plants, Sink, Recycle, Books, Floor, Art.  Each Monday, she draws student names with popsicle sticks and each student shouts out the job they would like to do that week.  They cannot choose the same job three weeks in a row. They can pass for only two weeks in a row. All the jobs need to be filled. Students have responsibility for their job all week.

Daily Math Drills – math-drills.com  Throughout the year, every day, the students do one of 26 multiplication drills (0 to 12 times tables).  There are 100 questions on each page.  The Classroom Teacher hands out the drill upside down.  She also does the drill and modelling a positive growth mindset.  The class does the drill in two minutes. Each day, the results are recorded in a book and when students reach 90 out of 100 questions, they receive a prize (a gift certificate for a free booster juice). Students are challenged to beat their own scores.  On a regular basis, she talks about how scores can go up and down based on your emotions, your physical needs, the amount you practice, the number of days off, or the time of day.  Near the end of the year, students will use their records to create tables and graphs of their progression over the year.

Weekly Reading Comprehension – Each week, students are given a reading comprehension worksheet and ten to fifteen minutes to work on it.  The worksheets are available on K12 Reader.com.  The Classroom Teacher takes a few quick minutes to review the activity concept.

Plan PE for the end of the day!  Pre-teens can smell kind of funky!  They are also mentally done in the afternoon.  Getting out of the classroom and doing physical activity at every age is important, especially in this age group.

Genius Hour – https://www.weareteachers.com/what-is-genius-hour/   Once per week students participate in a self-directed passion project block.  Students make an application for materials and spend this block learning about topics they want to learn about.  Students must present at least one of their Genius Hour projects during the school year.

Daily Reading Buddies – Fifteen minutes every day fosters not only strengthens the literacy skills of a Grade 6-7 class, but promotes leadership skills and a sense of community within the school.  This class prioritized two reading buddy classes every day!

Allow other Teachers to Share the Course Load – In this practicum, the Library Teacher taught the class Coding during my Coaching Teacher’s prep block as well as had them for Library.  They worked together to develop a plan and communicated effectively.  There were also times when the two Grade 6-7 teachers traded students to teach particular content or to manage other times in the school where it is better to have all of the Grade 7’s together, like during assessments and occasional PE classes.